A gamepad that's high on refinement

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Our Verdict

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With more and more console ports fouling up our beloved PC shores, it's understandable that you might want to invest in a gamepad to at least milk some joy from the latest bunch of soulless ports.

Luckily there are some very refined joypads out there, and you can count the Thrustmaster Run 'N' Drive among them.

While the fuss will undoubtedly be centred around the bizarre collar around the D-pad, which can be moved up and down to either turn a racing car, swing a golf club or zoom a sniper scope, we actually found that it's not necessarily a great improvement on a stick.

In racing games, we found it easy enough to get to grips with turning corners, but trying to control slides was extremely difficult.

The reason we like the Run 'N' Drive is that it's comfortable, has seven axes (great for racing games) and boasts a pretty incredible on-the-fly control mapping system. Without leaving your game, you can just hit the mapping button on the pad itself, select the function you want to assign and then select where you want it to be applied. Three button presses - very impressive.